Smaller projects thread (better name needed)

So while we're deciding what to do with the forge, and inbetween digging the frankly quite scary farm cave, I thought it would be a good time to quickly do some of the smaller projects that have been floating around for a while, they don't require much thought, and tbh I'l probably do them myself bit by bit, I've also had a couple of new ideas of my own.

-Build a guard room above the secret passage, there's a doorway dug already, maybe make it one big hall, with a doorway on the other side too? lots of beds, chests of weapons, target dummies, that kind of thing.

-Block museum in the old zombie spawner, I only remembered this because someone put a sign next to it, and I definitely think it would be the best place, as we can build something around the spawner to put it on display, alternatively we could leave this, and make it part of the larger library project we'll get round to soon.

-I also had an idea about the outside of the base, of building up the mountin slightly, so we can have a slightly larger entrance (Not door, just more stuff around it), and also have several towers come up out of the mountain, maybe one out of the guard room, one out of the secret tunnel underneath the throne? (talking of that, that could be done quite quickly).

I'm not intending to distract from other projects, but I feel a bit dwarfed by the size of the farm caves, and like mixing digging and building anyways.

3rdi wrote:
-Block museum in the old zombie spawner, I only remembered this because someone put a sign next to it, and I definitely think it would be the best place, as we can build something around the spawner to put it on display, alternatively we could leave this, and make it part of the larger library project we'll get round to soon.

Excellent idea, except I think the actual spawner block got smashed by someone already. Pity. We can probably find another somewhere, maybe in the abandoned mineshafts connected to the farm caves?

-I also had an idea about the outside of the base, of building up the mountin slightly, so we can have a slightly larger entrance (Not door, just more stuff around it), and also have several towers come up out of the mountain, maybe one out of the guard room, one out of the secret tunnel underneath the throne? (talking of that, that could be done quite quickly).

I like the idea of a more elaborate main entrance way, with turreted towers and something like the Black Gate of Mordor. Maybe a huge piston door, maybe a non-functional swivelling door with an Iron Golem playing the part of the trolls used at the Black Gate....

Some sort of actual exit for the secret tunnel behind the throne room is also a good idea, as I don't think we ever actually made it go anywhere.

3rdi wrote:I'm not intending to distract from other projects, but I feel a bit dwarfed by the size of the farm caves, and like mixing digging and building anyways.

hehehe Anyway, I'll reply properly later, just a quick visit before work

Oops, never got back to this :p

Anyway, I think it's a good idea to keep track of the smaller things going on around the city, and let everyone know what is still needed to be done.

Another one to add to the list is the minecart tunnels, which still need to be decorated

Speaking of minecart tunnels, I developed a neat sort of shopping mall for dealing with villagers. It's basically a big rectangular room, with a minecart track going around it just behind the walls. Every couple of blocks, there's a niche behind the wall with a window hole into it, where a villager will be standing eventually. In the center of the room are empty chests for bringing in and storing until traded the sorts of materials that can be profitably sold to villagers for emeralds (raw meat, wool, grain, paper, coal, etc.) and stuff bought from them, or sticking one's other inventory contents prior to a trading session. Obviously this was designed before the recent nerfing of villager trade emerald farming.

Anyways, the circular minecart track behind the wall has switchable side tracks into each of these niches, enabling villagers to be brought in by minecart, shunted into a niche, have the tracks ripped up behind them, then the cart taken and immediately wall them inside their niche, forever more to stand there and trade with the players. On the wall above or below the window goes a sign listing the type of villager and the last set of offers they were making.

This could be a smaller project to work on while bored with digging on the farms.

Hmmm.... Have you actually made this yet, or is it a concept? I'd like to see some pictures of what this looks like

Brendanan wrote:Hmmm.... Have you actually made this yet, or is it a concept? I'd like to see some pictures of what this looks like

I built it on the other server I play on. This model is integrated into my personal base complex, yet open to use by any player, with easy access via our continent-wide subway system, which doubles as the way to bring in villagers from an NPC village half a kilometer away.

The walled village I get the townies from:


The high-density housing units I built to boost population and ensure rapid replacement of any villagers I relocate to my mall:

Also visible is the cart track through the village to facilitate capture of villagers with carts for transport.

Entry to the subway system, with "doggie-door" cart entrance preventing wandering villagers or Iron Golems from getting into the tunnels:

Yes, I know the villagers can get through the wooden door, but the housing units are on the other end of the village, and I rarely see any near the station, so it's not a big issue. I tried to build a piston-based automatic door to let carts through only, but couldn't get it to work properly. Suffocated two villagers trying and gave up.

Far away from the village inside my base, here's where the tracks enter the mall:

The door on the left is for taking villagers in carts into the circular track behind the wall, for installing them in their niches. On the right is a short siding where I can either park carts with villagers while I prepare a niche for them, or park storage carts with bulk trade goods being brought in from other players' complexes for mass emerald trading. The cap on number of trades of a given item has put an end to such dreams of bringing in entire trains packed with paper, for example, from another player's massive underground reed farm. Or my own, for that matter.

More pics inside the mall in the next post.

The first thing you see upon entering is a snow golem manning an info desk:

Really, he's there to throw snowballs at any Enderman who teleports in from the surface or out of a nearby darkroom for my item/xp grinder. Either side of him, the center of the room is taken up with stacks of empty chests. These were for storing bulk trade goods for various players (we have a chest-locking plugin on this server) for later trading, or later transport back to their base, as well as providing a place for players to dump their personal inventory prior to loading up with trade goods for a nice rewarding session of trading, say, 36 stacks of wheat to a farmer for emeralds all at once. Or trading a stack or two of emeralds for a full inventory of dozens of diamond implements or whatever. The cap on number of repeat trades put the kibosh on that scheme, but the chests remain just in case.

The wall of butcher niches next to the entrance:

Above each niche window is a sign labelling the number of the niche and type of villager ensconced within. Below each window is a sign showing what that villager was offering to buy and/or sell last time I came through and checked. Since villagers can't move while in a niche, this should stay stable between trades. Because the trades offered may change after each trade, the signs can be updated rather than having to move the villager to a new niche if they change what they trade.

The wall of priests, next to the butchers:

There are four each of priests, librarians, butchers, and blacksmiths in the mall, and six farmers, split into two groups of three.

Half of the wall of farmers, which along with a small work area, makes up the back wall of the mall:

Also visible is the snow golem manning the "Mall Security" desk, protecting that end of the mall from endermen.

The small work area dividing the two groups of farmers:

There's an enderchest for secure storage and transport of emeralds to and from the mall, a couple of potions brewing stands, and chests full of food, survival gear, and potion ingredients. I will probably replace one of the brewing stands with an anvil at some point to make it a true one-stop work area, but for the time being, there's an anvil and enchanting library upstairs. The center brewing stand has a water source block behind it for filling bottles.

The wall of librarians, along with the snow golem manning the "lost and found" desk protecting that end of the mall:

You can also see one of the blacksmiths in his niche along that wall. Blacksmiths are one side of the main entrance, butchers the other side along the front wall. Librarians and priests are on the side walls, farmers and work area along the back wall.

Here's the end of the circular track behind the blacksmith wall:

As I only have two of the four blacksmith niches filled as yet, the last two niches still have open backs and tracks leading into them. You can see the manual switches for setting which niche an incoming villager-filled cart will go into, and which ones it will skip, including those left in place on the floor next to already-filled niches. As a cart enters around the corner at the right rear of the pic, as you can see, it would bypass the first niche and enter the second niche, on the far left of the screen.

Here's the circular track behind the Priest wall, with all niches filled with villagers and sealed off:

Once a niche is filled, the track spur leading into it is torn up, the cart under the villager broken and picked up, and the niche quickly sealed off with smoothstone before the villager can wander off and escape. Due to glitches or my own clumsiness, I did lose a couple of villagers in the process. One librarian was later found days later wandering my sheep pens, another glitched into a wall while still in the cart and suffocated to death before I could get him out. But otherwise things went off mostly without a hitch.

We don't need to keep this exact design, this was intended for compactly fitting into a space in my underground base. A larger and more decorative chamber could have larger niches farther apart or more elaborate "shops" for the villagers to man. Once all the villagers are in place, we could even rip out the tracks leading into the mall and hide the behind-the-scenes infrastructure from view a bit better.

That's pretty darn cool. I love the golem desks.

It's been dead since I was last around, so lets get the ball rolling a bit. I think I'm gonna work on the minecart tunnels a bit today, so if anyone can join me, come on in If I'm not on the server, send me a message and I should be within half an hour... 5-10 mins if you're lucky

Thinking of more smaller tasks, I had a few ideas that we could add to the outside of the city entrance. Besides building up the mountain what if we built up our defenses as well? When you leave the city now there is a ridge/hill right in front of you. To either side it is mostly flat land where we used to have farms. I was thinking that there could be some castle-like walls that surround the front gate where we have a courtyard with small paths leading to the gates. Overall the walls wouldn't be huge but would have a fancy stone pattern on them. Also the walls will be out far enough to not obstruct the view of the entrance arch. From this we can add various towers on the mountainside accessible from the walls.

If this idea is well received I will try and lay out an outline next time I am on. This isn't a huge amount of work, the hardest part will be getting the style right for a dwarven theme.

I agree with that last bit... Building up walls like that is rather difficult since we're focusing on dwarven underground building... I'm not 100% sold on the idea, but we'll see

Yeah, like I said it wouldn't be too much above ground stuff. Just a little more than what we have.

Maybe an enderman grinder? (hehehe) *hides*